you are looking at live video of los angeles international airport, where the situation is still very tense, following a shooting at terminal three this morning, there's not known how many people have been shot but one of the victims is reported to be a tsa agent and that agent has been killed. lax is the third busiest airport in america and it is shut down for all but incoming flights that need to land. we've got a busy show with the latest developments. >> we're hearing the suspect is in custody.

let's get more from scott cohn. >> as we've been reporting this got under way 9:30 local time, 12:30 eastern time in terminal three of lax, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams citing multiple law enforcement sources says that one tsa employee was shot and killed, it apparently unfolded at the checkpoint going into security, the point in the security line where you show your documents. there are reports that the shooter was armed with a rifle. the suspect according to lax now says that the suspect is in custody, and the lapd does have a news conference scheduled for the bottom of this hour. air traffic as you might expect has been, is in havoc not only in los angeles but across the country on the east coast, there had been weather related delays. now there is a ground stop apparently still in effect so

flights bound for l.a. if they had not taken off they are being held in the ground at their departure point although jane wells who is outside the airport says she has seen some flights taking off and some landing as they get this all under control, and the scene outside the airport as you can see as you look at live is still quite a bit of chaos, with heavy law enforcement source, all of the terminals at lax reportedly were evacuated and passengers that go back in will be subject to rescreening. the bulk of the incident is reportedly over with but not without tragic ruts. one tsa employee killed, multiple people injured, with he believe three but we're still working that out and the suspect reportedly in custody with the news conference again scheduled for the bottom of the hour. >> thank you for the latest. just to reiterate, 2:30 p.m. eastern, a news conference expected to see the lapd chief

the mayor of los angeles as well as the lax chief so of course we'll find out hopefully more details from them. in the meantime why don't we go to nbc news analyst and former fbi profiler clint van zandt, on the phone, mary ellen o'toole and former tsa policy official tom blankedwahl thank you for joining us today. clint, first of all we are hearing a report that the gunman is in custody here. what is the first step in the process of finding more from him? >> of course he'll be interviewed. he will be advised of his rights, we'll try to find out not only who he is, what his motive was but was he acting alone or not and realize there is a lot of investigative steps not withstanding trying to take care of the injured and wounded but investigators will be searching his house and vehicle and trying to find out if anybody else was involved with him, perhaps by way of security

cameras. >> clint, take us deeper then into the thinking. what is happening right now on a variety of sides of the investigation? >> sure. well you've got the los angeles airport police, the lead agency, unless it's determined this is a terrorist activity then the fbi becomes the lead agency. realize this is such a big airport the fbi has an office right there at the l.a. airport so they would have deployed, the airport police would have deployed, lapd sheriff's office, fire, rescue, a lot of agencies that would have come pouring in. i heard one alleged eyewitness suggest that he or she heard somewhere between 10 and 30 shots being fired so should we just have two people shot and as tragic as it is, we're hearing a tsa officer was shot and killed

in this. very few if any tsa officers carry a weapon. they are hanging out there as you and i walk up, present our documents before we go through any metal detector, they are the first line of security but the first ones to get hurt in a situation like this. >> mary ellen -- we are now going to break in and go to knbc in los angeles. let's listen in. >> -- -- was? >> i couldn't really get a good face recognition. >> and what did you do at that point? you looked back and see him coming up the stairs, did you then take off running? were there more shots fired after that? >> there were. we started running and i kind of ran a little bit back to get my mom, you know, because she thought a girl fell and wanted to help her up. i had to pull her on and i saw this guy open up a room and my

mom was still here so we were running into the room and where all of the officers were, and they put us into a room with probably like ten other people and we turned the lights off and put a photo copier machine in front of the door and that's when i heard, you know, a couple more shots when we were in the room. >> so when the man came up the stairs, was he saying anything? was he making any threats? did you see tsa agents or other officers rushing towards him as you ran away? >> all of the tsa people were running away, i didn't see any police officers. he wasn't saying anything, he was walking up taking his time. >> so luke right there in the middle of it, our first description of the actual gunman, a man who he describes as skinny, tall man, dressed in all black, walking with an assault rifle, before he went back for, luke went back for his mother, to get into a dark room, turn out the lights and put a

copy machine to block the door, just you can imagine what a frightening experience. >> we go to toni guinyard at lax with another witness account. toni? >> reporter: yes, not necessarily a witness, but a witness to the chaotic mess caused as a result of the investigation of the shooting in terminal three. we are standing in between terminals one and two. carol stubbs was in terminal two heading on a, to a destination wedding in hawaii, the bride and groom are here, clearly plans have changed and you realized something was wrong when police started doing what? >> well we were sitting in the bar and first identified it on the television in the bar and then we were seated and we could see the police action across at terminal three. >> reporter: you have a clear

view terminal two to terminal three. >> correct we could see the police cars and the helicopter going above. we thought we were perfectly safe, everybody was calm and then they had us evacuate to the other side of the term namm and they came through about five minutes later and told us we were leaving the terminal. >> reporter: just like that, you are leaving the terminal or everyone leave? >> it was loud, because they wanted everybody to hear and it's like we're outta here, and so everybody evacuated. >> reporter: at what point were you told if at all that there had been a shooting here at los angeles international airport? >> we were watching the news in the bar and then everyone got on their cell phones and ipads, et cetera, and we were following it on the news. >> reporter: i pulled carol out of line. she was in the group that was

walking past us from terminal two towards basically as far off of the airport property or away from the terminals as you can get and she was willing to talk to us. what have they told you about what you do next? >> they have told us absolutely nothing. we are just following where they tell us to go. >> reporter: you did not hear any shots, did not see signs of panic? >> i did not. no. where i was in terminal two everything was calm, the policeman came in after we were evacuated and system atically going from the front to the back and when they got to us they asked to us leave. >> reporter: i hope you and the entire wedding party will be able to make it but i'm sure you understand the investigation going on and our indications with nbc 4 someone lost their life in this, so that this is serious. >> yes. very serious. and the we had something not until sunday, i'm sure we'll be there in time and we have the

bride. >> reporter: thank you so much. everyone trying to keep a good attitude about the situation. right now people are confused, told to just walk, follow an officer, many of them are now standing in the sun, ea lot of older people getting tired, there is confusion, they aren't being given directions past we need to you move to this position. there is no panic, just a little frustration. if everyone got information what exactly was going on or what would happen to them how -- >> we'll pick can up from knbc there. the eyewitness said the shooter appeared to be tall and skinny and wearing dark clothes. tom blake, in this situation, which is everybody's worst nightmare, we've seen confrontations with the tsa, this may be one to the extreme, what would be the tsa procedure

following the shooting? >> i'd like to extend condolences to the slain officer's family and friends. i believe that is the first tsa officer killed in the line of duty. to answer your question one of the key security measures put in place following 9/11 was the assignment of a high level security director to each major airport around the country. that individual usually was a military, law enforcement background work with airport management to draw up an airport security program. that would lay out who has what responsibility when an incident presents itself, whether it's an incident like this aboard an aircraft or whatever it might be. what you've seen here in many ways is the unfolding of the emergency response, incident response and perimeter security

go up. you've seen certain law enforcement take responsibility for this response. lot of that is a result of tsa coordination. if the security officers were leaving their posts that would be likely as a result of their training and their direction. >> tom, forgive me, i need to jump in with breaking news. nbc news confirmed the gunman has been killed. there is one gunman at least the report for now and nbc news can report that the gunman in the shooting has been killed. nbc news pete williams also reporting that one tsa agent has lost his or her life, another was shot and wounded in the leg, we have no update on the condition. we are going to take a brief break. the news the gunman has been killed, one tsa agent also killed, one wounded in the leg. we're going to be back with more on this developing story when cnbc returns. to a mattress to a mattress to to tostore and essentially they

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welcome back to "street signs." we'd like to bring you up to date with the situation unfolding. there was a shooting at terminal three at lax. the gunman has been killed by law enforcement. there was one tsa officer unfortunately killed as well. we do not know the identity of that person and another tsa worker wounded in the lax shooting. tom blank a former tsa policy

official. how will things change now, to what degree will security tighten up in terms of what tsa officers are going to do from here? >> i'd say that's being assessed right now. there will be an incident management team that will involve federal law enforcement, tsa, airport management, very likely, and local airport officers, they will go through and make a determination of whether we have a coordinated atta attack, a one-off incident, and whether the threat is continuing. if they make a determination that the threat is continuing, you may begin to see heightened security measures looking at cars coming on the airport, additional checks at the checkpoint and things like that. i think the early indications here are that this looks like it may be a one-off incident. the reason i say is that some airline operations have resumed at other terminals.

if they were worried about a coordinated attack and done their threat assessment, their intelligence analysis, they likely would not have permitted a resumption of air traffic activities. >> tom i want to reiterate to our audience although some reports the suspect is "in custody" nbc news confirmed that the suspect is indeed dead along with unfortunately one tsa agent, another wounded in the leg. the gunman has been reported killed. to follow up on mandy's question, what further changes will we see? tsa officers are not armed right now. the airport police indeed are. i know security has ramped up dramatically obviously since 9/11. do you believe this one incident, tom, will result in further pushes by the tsa to even perhaps arm tsa officers or change the prescreening security procedures. right now anybody can walk up to the checkpoint. >> well, i don't think that

you'll see a move toward arming the tsa officers. in order to do that they would have to become fully fledged law enforcement officers. they are security officers and well trained but they are not trained to the level of a law enforcement officer so i don't think that they would wind you have being armed. you may see some tighter coordination with law enforcement agencies at the at lax, you may see additional patrols, some of the federal air marshals expanding their presence for the time being. i wouldn't immediately think that any permanent high level of security will be implemented. >> we would like to bring in phil lebeau. lax is the sixth largest airport in the world and t3 where the shooting took place this morning houses lots of airlines, virgin america, virin australia, jetblue and others.

have very heard any reaction from the airlines themselves to this incident? >> no, because they're taking a back seat, in terms of everything there is being controlled by the local authorities. we've heard of a few flights that landed, not heard of any going, airlines in terminal three, and if you think about it, it makes sense. they brought everybody out of the terminals. they have to screen everybody to get back in and that's just the passengers. you've also got the support personnel as well as the employees so it's going to take some time for those airlines in particular before we see any flights coming in, let alone taking off. >> and phil, give us more color on what this is going to do nationally for air traffic, third busiest airport in america, about 31 million passengers, roughly divided equally, about 85,000 per day. there are so many connections across the country, what would a delay such as this do to air traffic in chicago? in new york? in miami?

>> well it depends. you have bad weather in the new york area so you've got your own issues separate from this. it depends on the airlines flying out there, in other words if they're not into terminal three those are likely going to be opened and receiving traffic and we've already heard reports of a few flights landing and a few that are taking off and you've got your international connections, which is also a concern. those are going to get up and running quicker than those out of terminal three. so it really does depend where you are and which airline flies. if you are owe an allejiants it will be a while. it will be a while before you see a flight going into terminal three. it comes down to which airline you're talking about. >> phil lebeau, thank you for the update. in ten minutes' time lax officials will be holding a news conference at 2:30 p.m. eastern time. we believe that the lapd chief will be there, the mayor of los angeles, as well as the lax

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a live look at los angeles international airport's terminal three. to recap a very fluid situation, nbc news confirmed that the suspect, the gunman has indeed been killed. there are some reports he is in custody, but we can say with conviction that he has indeed been killed. sources inside of nbc news reporting one tsa agent has been unfortunately killed as well. another tsa agent shot in the leg, there may be other shooting victims as well, but that's what we can tell you at the moment. let's bring in our guests, former fbi special agent dawn clark, clint van zandt, mary ellen o'toole and joining us on the news line, former senior adviser at the department of homeland security, bradley schreiber. all of you thank you very much for joining us. mary ellen i want ask you in this situation we try to

ascertain based on what we know whether or not this is an act of domestic violence, whether it's terrorism, whether the gunman was working alone or in concert with others, or whether it was like a current or former worker maybe disgruntled for some particular reason. which of the above or maybe another does it feel like to you as a former fbi profiler? >> well at this point it would be too premature to say. they have to look at his background, where he comes from, who his associates are. there is a lot of information they need to obtain before they can say with any certainty if these were targeted victims or if they were victims of opportunity. my sense it when you have this case with people going around even for one targeted victim, a spouse, ex-spouse or a boss there are still random victims that will be hurt and/or killed.

>> mary ellen, hold that thought. we'll get back to our other guests in a moment. we have our very own jayne wells who is live outside of lax airport. describe the scene and what you are hearing. >> i'm on the south side of the airport imperial highway. it's gridlock trying to get into the airport. you can see a delta aircraft parked on the taxiway right now. you can see planes on the south side, back-to-back, slowly starting to take off. i would say we have one maybe taking off oh, every five minutes -- planes still landing on the north side which is the side where terminal three is. for those of you who come through lax terminal three is the no the busiest terminal. it and terminal two are the most lightly traveled so in terms of the massive amount the main number of flights terminal one, the bradley terminal next door, terminal seven those are not

directly impacted by this, but they are still -- >> okay we've lost jane wells' feed. lot of electricity operated, wifi, you name it so technology is at best fluid as well as the situation. let's take a short break. we'll come back and we have a news conference with eric garcetti, and charlie beck, head of the police department and lax airport, and police will have more information, a fluid situation, scary one from lax. we're back right after this. ♪ like, really big... then expanded? ♪ or their new product tanked? ♪ or not? what if they embrace new technology instead? ♪ imagine a company's future with the future of trading. company profile. a research tool on thinkorswim.

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half past the hour on the east coast, half past 11:00 a.m. in los angeles where the scene is still playing out at los angeles international airport. we give you the latest as we've come to know in these mass shootinginess tents that we've become too accustomed to reporting the facts are a little bit difficult as the incidents unfold. the latest reports now from nbc's pete williams indicate that the shooting victims, three, were all tsa employees. one of those employees killed, three others were wounded. there had been reports earlier on our air and elsewhere, citing nbc news, that the gunman had

been killed. we cannot now be certain of that, but we can tell you three victims, all tsa employees, one of them killed, any moment now we expect a news conference in los angeles, and of course we'll bring that to you live. brian, mandy, back to you. >> thank you for the update there, scott cohn. let's bring back our guests, former fbi special agent dawn clark, clint van zandt, mary ellen o'toole and bradley schreiber. dawn, let me bring you into the conversation, from what we were just hearing from scott the fact according to pete williams at nbc the shooting victims were tsa agents, obviously we have not identified exactly who the gunman is but can we ascertain potentially that he might be of the tsa himself and maybe this is a disgruntled worker

incident? >> well that's always a possibility that you've got to look at. that's one of the many aspects that's got to be taken a look at here but clearly you've got to start at grassroots particularly if you don't have any really glaring information that tells you it did possibly come from one point. this would be one aspect pen clint van zandt there, my dear friend would probably agree because he analyzes that quite a bit and very well. >> clint would you agree with that? >> i think so. the challenge is lax is so big and this is the third significant incident and the death makes it more. recently we had one tsa employee that was arrested for making alleged death threats and two different airport employees -- >> clint, sorry we have to -- dpsh. >> allegedly tried to set off a

dry ice bomb. >> the tsa employee that threatened other lives an lax tsa employee? >> that's my knowledge, supposedly the employee was suspended two months ago, allegedly he told a young woman she was dressed inappropriately. he had been suspended. subsequent to that he is alleged to made some type of death threat and was arrested with that. that's when this happened today that is kind of the course i started thinking, can we exclude anything like that, the way the person is dressed and act sounds like they went right up to confront tsa officers and that's what they would do if they thought he could get a gun through the area. >> we know lax is one of the busiest airports in the world and people in line and all of the victims in the shooting have been reported to be tsa agents, it could just be random but you

think of the people likely standing around, getting in line, waiting for loved ones, et cetera, it starts to become a lot less random and seems, we don't know this, but it seems more targeted toward the tsa. >> this is something investigators are going to have to resolve quickly. it's highly likely should this shooter have any connection with the airport the investigators would already know who is he and what that possible connection is. the next, and it's a giant leap and we don't want to take it, was this directed against the agents specifically or was it just a general threat? >> we need to find that out. i apologize for busting in but scott cohn you have more details. >> i just want to give clarity. as we know the things get confusing as the details come in. this is nbc news quoting a senior government official, one tsa employee killed, three other

tsa employees injured. gunman with a long gun approached the checkpoint, may have been running and the initial reports are that the suspect was a ticketed passenger. there's a lot that's flying around here about who this suspect was, and probably a good idea for us to be careful about too much conjecture. we await the lax news conference that hopefully abo lly will giv something more concrete. one tsa employee killed, three others injured according to a senior government official quoted by nbc news and the initial reports are that the suspect was a ticketed passenger. now as clint has been saying the ticketed passenger could very well be this off-duty tsa agent. we don't have any confirmation from our end. >> thank you for the details. jane wells standing outside of l lax, we're still waiting afor te news conference. what are you hearing?

>> reporter: we are hearing about the victims. those taken to ucla medical center the three victims who were tsa employee, one patient arrived in critical condition and the other two are listed in fair condition. as you probably have been talking about, lax has been a bit on edge. we just had these dry ice bombs involving allegedly a contracted baggage handler employee and another incident a few weeks back. security has been briefed. there are ground stop for planes that are here, occasionally taking off, especially on the south side, and planes that were inbound, not been diverted. we have seen a few land on the north side of the airport, again, closer to terminal three. guys? >> jane wells, thank you. >> reporter: i should also point out we have probably one, two, three, four -- five news helicopters right over the airport, which is extremely unusual. as you can imagine, this is an

air car for that is very busy and helicopters are usually kept very high or far away. not so much -- five -- six of them over lax right now. no planes taking off at the moment. >> so jane, you have not seen any planes taking off? we've heard reports some planes have been allowed to take off. you have not seen any? >> reporter: yes, here is a commuter jet that appears to be taking off right now. i would say that looks like a turbo prop. i can't tell if that's american eagle but that's just taking off. >> we need to exactly find out what the situation is with that in terms of those arriving and those taking off. there we go, because we have been watching the live feed and seen some planes in the air in the area so the ground stop, it seems as if the ground stop is in effect but question clearly see there is some traffic. >> some traffic there and again folks let's give you updates. this is a very --

>> a plane has just landed. >> nbc news now saying the condition of the gunman perhaps is not known but we do know this. u.s. citizen, in his 20s and it is a male. nbc news now saying the condition of the gunman is not known. it was reported earlier the gunman has been killed. may still be the case but the condition not fully verifiable right now. as scott cohn adroitly pointed out, a fluid situation, a lot of information continues to come out, third largest airport in the united states, 31 million passengers a year, 85,000 passengers a day that connect the flights all over the world. >> we're looking currently at some still pictures of the scene there, this is of knbc, los angeles affiliate, looking at live pictures now outside of the lax international airport, the incident took place at terminal three this morning. let's get back to some of our guests while waiting for the

news conference to start. the news conference we should say was due to start about eight minutes ago, we're expecting a number of people, such as the lapd chief and the mayor of los angeles to be speaking but in the meantime i would like to get to the former senior adviser of the department of homeland security, bradley schreiber. thank you very much for joining us today. give us your initial thoughts on what the implications might be of what seems like yet another shooting incident on u.s. soil. >> well it's clear our nation's airports remain to be a target and the security protocols we put in place since 9/11 have to be examined. we've taken tsa attempted to put a security in-depth procedure into their airports to allow for various levels of security as you get deeper into the airport. we have to look back and see does that make sense? do we want to expand that border, if you will, up to the front door or even beyond that? and that's going to be an

ongoing discussion as we go forward, to ensure that the need for commerce and the need for security are equally balanced. >> is that fair to say? i'll push back that the airports remain a target. if this is indeed turns out to be effectively a workplace shooting and we don't know if it is or not if it is, it could happen at any workplace targeting their co-worker, not the place of the work. >> but the fact is that the individual, the suspect had a weapon on him. he committed, he shot at least three individuals and this has a direct impact on international commerce, our security, people's perceptions of what they're going to do and not do, there are businesses inside that airport now probably shut down and not operating. there is a tremendous impact that any type of activity have on airports versus other locations for these types of incidents. >> thank you for that. please stay there. we're going to go for a quick break here on krning. we will be back after that. do not go away.

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the situation considering there was a fatal shooting this morning at terminal three at lax international airport. momentarily there will be a news conference held at lax, the first speaker we believe will be the los angeles mayor eric garcetti. the gunman has been injured but we do not at this stage know his condition. we will of course bring you more details as soon as it becomes available. >> waiting on the press conference. we have the l.a. police chief, it is expected the chief of police for the airport, because the airport does maintain its own police department, as we have heard the tsa not armed, airport police is. so more details on all of this stuff right now. >> in terms of the shooting victims, we do know that they were tsa agents, one unfortunately has been killed. there are three others injured. they've been taken to the ucla hospital. they have three patients, with

unis in critical condition. >> i'll update us on the markets. this is cnbc. gold is down 13 bucks, we're not getting any fear or risk bid that we talk about sometimes. gold is down. the dow is actually up 55 points right now so we're not seeing a negative impact. we have seen situations in the past where there is airport events, mandy, whatever it might be, a risk on sell position if you will for stocks, people hit sell and then figure out the situation later. i think unfortunately and this is a sad testament to our times that we are now seeing so many types of these incidents, perhaps not at airports but around the country, right, that we have become not immune to them but we have perhaps interest a market perspective become more muted. the best performing stock, boeing, jpmorgan chase the worst is chevron. >> dow is on track for its third weekly gain. we have phil lebeau and eamon javers. the president has been briefed on the situation.

any minute we'll get a news conference with lax officials. what more have you heard in terms of the official reaction to the incident? >> not a whole lot of official here in washington. we got a statement from the faa saying there had been a ground stop but not much more information than reporters are getting locally. also the white house saying that the president was briefed earlier today by his deputy chief of staff, that they are not having any more information at this point, according to white house spokesman jay carney, then folks watching this over the media are getting, but that the president will be following developments throughout the afternoon here, also they're saying that the lapd here will be the lead agency on this, so when we see this press conference from the lapd it's expected that they will be in charge of this at least until the feds decide to step in at some point. as of the press briefing from jay carney, which was about 45 minutes ago, they did not have any information that the feds had stepped in yet to take this

investigation over. as you are saying we have seen a lot of these incidents in recent weeks and months and this is starting to become all too familiar of an experience for us here in washington and around the country. >> we are, eamon. here is where the story will go in the next couple of days. we've seen this in the past which is that very delicate balancing of the safety and security, which has to be paramount for all travelers of an important industry which is air travel but also not overdoing it to the point where people pulled back on their air travel because they need to maintain open skies. we've seen the tsa precheckup i'm a member, it's one of the best things tsa has done i think, alleviate the stalls and the delays at the airport, so we're now going to be again in that delicate dance, right, once the smoke has cleared on this, between do we then as we just heard a former tsa official talk about beef up security even further versus acknowledge that bad things due to bad people will often happen but we can't

also risk damaging commerce in the united states. i don't know if that makes sense but i think you get my point. >> it's an important question, brian. having covered a couple of these shootings in washington over the past couple of months and done a lot of flying myself at airports, the comment about security at airports is an interesting one because you look at what the tsa has done, they moved the security checkpoint back away from the gates themselves and further into the terminal, but there is always going to be a point no matter how far you move that perimeter back always a point where the public comes in contact with the security for the first time. that's the point where you're going to have an incident no matter where you put it. could you put it down the block but there could be an incident there. >> phil i know you want to jump in on the topic as well, phil? >> just mandy i wanted to say people, and i've made this point last hour people bring up how often is somebody at the airport with a weapon. it happens more than you think. the latest numbers from the tsa for the beak ending october 25th my producer meghan reader just

called up these numbers, 39 firearms seized, 32 loaded, seven had rounds chamber, ready to fire, and in the first six months of this year the tsa confiscated 894 guns. so this happens increasingly with frequency that people are bringing weapons to the airport. >> we just don't hear about it. unless it becomes a security incident. >> that's true. i will tell you that i tweet out that tsa number probably every week when they release it and i always get a few tweets back people saying really, that many people bring weapons to the airport? it happens and it's increasing in frequency. that's the scary part about this. >> also if i could jump back in here talking about the tsa itself, the role that the tsa plays in american life has become extremely controversial. this is a ranging from dislike to extremely hated agency in america, a lot of people like to gripe about the tsa but to phil's point these are the folks on the very front lines of

security, if any incident is going to happen it's going to happen around a tsa agent right there where they interface with the public for the very first time, that's the point at which you could get a weapon in without passing it through or sneaking it through any security barrier at all. these are people who take a lot of abuse in american life but they're out there abuse in american life but they're out there on the front lines. for those that travel, they're out there to protect the traveling public. >> phil, again, if we have to interrupt you, we apologize. we can see, we're watching videos of the l.a. police of chief. so the press conference may begin momentarily. to that question i asked eamon, what is the airline's position on safety? obviously, they will say to you, safety is paramount, it must be. but at the same time, the more complicated travel becomes, the more likely people will not travel. what's their position in that delicate dance, as i referred to it? >> you're right. i don't think there's a good answer. the airlines want people to have

the smoothest flying experience possible. that means from the point they buy a ticket to the point they're delivered to their destination. for a long time you heard people say, listen, the half of flying is going to keep me from flying. there have been some studies done whether or not it actually stops people from flying. the bottom line is this, the airline and airports do not want a big bottle neck. they don't want it to be where going through security is such a big hassle where you say, i don't want to do it. that's the fine, delicate dance you're talking about. and i think they've improved it over the last couple of years, in my opinion. with as much as i fly, i think they've improved it. is it perfect? no. it never will be. you have millions of people going through these entry points. frankly, a lot of people are slow, they don't follow the rules. the rules clearly stated. that further complicates it. and you have people in a hurry, so they're agitated. >> it can never be an absolutely

perfect situation. eamon, what likely is this to put more fuel on the fire of the gun debate in washington? >> what's interesting is we've seen the gun debate tail off after each one of these instances. after newton last year, we saw an extraordinary gun debate in this country. after each one of these successive instances we've seen less and less talk about guns. it seems like that is a debate that's stuck and not moving right now politically. we're seeing less and less talk about it after each one of these incidents. >> i want to point out to our viewers, i'll try to describe it. charlie beck, chief of police, walking toward the camera. eric garcetti, los angeles mayor. let's go to the news conference at los angeles airport. >> here with members of law enforcement as well as

administrators of the airport. at 9:20 this morning, most of us know now, an incident occurred here at the airport with a shooter who was actively involved in terminal 3. i'll be having chief gannon from airport police, lala police give you a run down. gina lindsey, director at airport, will be giving run down of the loved ones. first i want to thank the law enforcement community for their excellent and coordinated response to this incident. we believe this to be a static situation now is. a safe one for those that are in the airport and one in which we are all confident we will be able to conduct the investigation necessary to get all the facts out that, no doubt, you and the public want to know. second, we're working very hard in the operations of the airport. if you haven't been able to be in touch with a loved one who

was already through security in one of the terminals, other than terminal three, flights have continued to take off at a slower pace, especially on the south side, which is terminals 4 through 8. those folks may be in the air right now. do not worry about that. we have fights continuing to land, and we'll walk through that as well. again, this is a situation we're being proactive. if you have a flight this afternoon, we're encourage you at this point to stay away from the airport. not because of the safety situation but because the ongoing investigation makes it a very difficult place to come to and travel to. those folks here right now, we're encourage them to go to -- if you're in the terminal, terminals besides terminal 3 are open, and of course airport hotels close by. this will at least be a series of hours before we have other terminals open, and for terminal 3, an indefinite amount of time.

with that, i would like to turn it over to chief gannon for a rundown of the incident. >> thank you, mayor. patrick gannon, g-a-n-n-o-n, i'm the chief of airport xlees at l.a. international airport. as the mayor indicated, at 9:20 an individual came into terminal 3 of this airport, pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire in the terminal. he proceeded up into the screening area where tsa screeners are and continued shooting and went past the screeners back into the airport itself. personnel officers from los angeles airport police, respond immediately to the calls. they tracked the individual

through the airport and engaged him in gunfire in terminal 3 and were able to successfully take him into custody. we had an officer involved shooting that took place. as you can imagine, a large amount of chaos took place during this entire incident. we believe at this point that there was a lone shooter. that he acted, at least right now, was the only person that was armed in this incident. there's a tremendous amount of investigative work that will be done. i'll turn that over to the fbi in just a second, in a little bit. but nonetheless, we have done security sweeps through the entire airport. we feel confident this particular incident is tied to terminal 3 and terminal 3 only.

and that's all we have right now. there's a tremendous amount of investigative work that will need to be accomplished. we have multiple victims that have been shot and transported. and we've had some other injuries as well. in addition to the suspect himself. i don't have much more information than that. i don't want to give out information that may not be consistent later on. so, i appreciate your cooperation and just getting this little bit of information out right now. >> we'll take questions at end. >> next we'll hear from gina marie lindsey, executive director of lala and let folks know what's happening with flights around the airport right now. >> could you say -- >> hold on one second, please. we'll take questions after. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i want to let everyone know technically l.a.x. is still

accepting incoming flights but we're doing that than less than half of our normal arrival rates. we're only accepting those flights on the south airfield. we're not accepting any flights on the north airfield. passengers that were ready to leave at the time this incident happened have either left on their aircraft or they are holding in the terminals. all the amenities are available in the terminals. we have aircraft that are also situated on the west remote pads. they have not been unloaded yet. there are one or two diversions we are making to ontario airport. i want to encourage any of those expecting to have flights out of this airport this afternoon, please check with your airline. the best, very best up to date information you can get would be on our twitter line which is laxunder score official. again.

lax, underscore, official. that's the most real-time information you can get. we understand there are many people that were not quite in the airport yet when this happened. we encourage you to find a place at some of the hotels along century boulevard. and we will -- as soon as possible, we will let you know when we try to get back to full operation. understand, that will take quite a deal of time. it will be a logistics -- carefully orchestrated logistical ballet to get people reprocessed and back on their flights. it's fair to say almost every flight out of l.a.x. today will be significantly late. thank you. >> next is jim featherstone, fire chief. today is his first day as interim fire chief. also runs emergency operations, general manager of emergency management department. we'll speak to both fire and emergency operation center activities.

>> good morning. jim featherstone. at this time the lafd has treated seven patients, transported six to area hospitals. we have approximately 100 firefighters committed to this incident. as chief gannon said, this initially started around 9:20, 9:28 the first lafd resources were on scene. in terms of a more heightened awareness and coordinated effort citywide, the city's emergency operation center has been activated at level 1, has been for well over two hours now. so the city is standing tall and leaning forward to deal with any associated issues that happened outside of the actual l.a.x. property. >> thank you. next we'll hear from the chief of the los angeles police department, who's involved in this and some of the operations as well. chief charlie beck. >> very briefly. i want to command the men